Sunday Gratitude: Writing Prayers

In this post, Nancy Devine reminds us that most of us have a pretty good life:  "So I guess this post is about reminding myself that life is good when I've got time to think about my computer or when I can spend ten minutes or so cleaning up my Netflix's queue. Sure, I could have better hair, our house could be cleaner...I could finish the novel lounging on my hard drive."


But overall, life is good for her, and I suspect for many of us.

Today, I am grateful for many things, but what's making me happiest this morning is that I got an offer to write prayers for Bread for the Day, a daily devotional put out by Augsburg Fortress press.  Last year, I worked on this project for the first time, and I found that I really loved writing the prayers (for more on the writing process, see this blog post).

The editor tells us that the 2011 edition has sold out.  How wonderful to think of all those people using that book.

I wrote the prayers for August, and since the book has sold out, maybe this August, I'll reprint some of them here.  If the book hadn't sold out, I might worry that by publishing them here, I'd be cheating the publisher.  But since the book is sold out, I'm less worried.  I won't put them all here; I like a blog with variety, and I suspect you do too.  But I was really pleased with some of those prayers, and I'd love to share them further.

Let me hasten to add that I don't think the end product was the result of me alone.  Before writing, I prayed for guidance and inspiration.  I live in hope that God answered that prayer.

I worked on a variety of writing projects in the past year, but writing prayers for the devotional book was one of my favorite tasks.  I'm happy to be able to do it again this year.

May your Sunday deliver all sorts of blessings, those you hope for and those that will surprise you.